Murder, She Etched (Episode 1: Paper Plate Homicide)
by Sacred Dust
Summary: Amanda Lane comes back to Lawndale after achieving great success with her sculptures of death and dying, but her abilities are put to the test when she is called upon to solve an actual murder mystery. (Inspired by 'Murder, She Wrote')
1. Suffer For Your Art

_A/N: I've wanted to write something in the 'Murder, She Wrote' vein for a long time. I'm a big fan of the program because of its time-tested, inexhaustible formula and Angela Lansbury's extraordinary performances. All I had to do was choose an older female 'Daria' character to fill a role similar to Jessica Fletcher's. For that, she must: (1) be a creative person plausibly well known for her work, (2) be well-traveled enough to go around solving mysteries, and (3) be attractive, funny, and interesting to develop. I immediately settled on Jane and Trent's mother Amanda._

 _Our first chapter is inspired by the MSW episode Murder Takes the Bus. Parts of this are also similar to an earlier story of mine, The Man Next Door. DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction. I do not own 'Daria' or 'Murder, She Wrote', or any of the characters therein. This story is for entertainment purposes only._

Ω

 **MURDER, SHE ETCHED**

** Prologue **

 _August 2000 (shortly after the events of 'Is It Fall Yet?')_

It was only supposed to be a butterfly.

Amanda Lane stood back with an uncommonly grim expression and pondered the fate of her latest piece.

"If you try to hold a butterfly in your hands, it will die," she often said to her children. "You have to let it go. And if it comes back to you, it was truly yours; and if it doesn't, it never really was."

Yes. That was her mistake. She'd tried to squeeze and confine the clay, to force it into that ever elusive shape. She failed to follow her own advice at first. Only when she gave up, allowed her mind to drift and the clay to mold itself, had it finally become something. And what it became deeply confused her.

From her workbench in the basement rose a vague shape of a man laying supine, behind him the shape of a woman cradling his head in the crook of one arm. Asleep? There were no details yet, no facial expressions, and perhaps there never would be. Yet the woman's position could also be seen as predatory, and she held an object in her other hand that looked very much like a knife.

Amanda shivered slightly at the thought. Lately, more and more of her sculptures were coming out like this one. Certain television shows had sparked an interest in crime and forensics, and the vivid murder mystery novels of J.B. Fletcher had helped her to visualize, but that only partly explained the new theme. Images of death and sorrow had been creeping into the back of her mind and influencing her work for months.

She gazed uncertainly around the cluttered basement. _Home,_ she thought to herself. _You are home._

It was still a strange concept to her. Until now, home had been wherever her husband Vincent was off to or her own inspiration beckoned. But memories of the unexpected Lane "reunion" last year had preyed on her mind until she could stand it no longer. Her children needed her - if they would have her. If there was anything she could do to make up for the past.

If she wasn't too late.

She had always been an artist by trade, but sometimes her whole life felt like one big mystery she was trying to solve. She was already fifty years old. If there was an answer, she wanted to find it before her time ran out. Mortality. Loss. A point of no return. Perhaps that was what inspired her now.

Amanda checked the clock. It was after midnight. Time for dinner.

She looked at the piece for a long time before going upstairs.

Ω

Ω

 **EPISODE I : Paper Plate Homicide**

**Chapter One: Suffer for Your Art**

Ashfield was an unincorporated town in eastern Pennsylvania, notable for its proximity to Blue Mountain and Lizard Creek as well as the Ashfield Community for the Arts, a popular artists' colony in the region. The colony itself consisted of several ramshackle buildings thrown up in a wooded clearing with little restraint or direction. At first glance it could be rather charming, an impression that was usually dashed as soon as one met some of its guests.

For her part, Jane Lane didn't care if she never saw the place again. A slender, angular girl with short dark hair and a red shirt over gray shorts and black leggings, the painter had been ready to leave three weeks ago. She had stayed until the end of the term, as she told her best friend, out of "some kind of dumb-ass notion about seeing this through." Now that the Summer of Self-Love was over at last, she could go home and tell Daria all the gory details of how arrogant the other artists were and what a disappointment it had been.

One in particular had just spotted her as she left her dorm and was walking over to say goodbye. She was an attractive brunette in her early twenties with a black tank top and slacks.

"Hello, Alison," Jane tried to be civil, but her friendship with this woman had cooled off quite a bit since a certain incident three weeks ago. It was a long story that Jane intended to share with Daria and no one else.

"Hey, Jane. You're heading home, too? Well, I'll see you if I see you. And try not to take everything so seriously, okay?"

"I'll keep that in mind. Try not to liquor up any more teenagers in your room, okay?"

Alison folded her arms. "I told you that was just a misunderstanding. Besides, it's your word against mine. Mine and Daniel's, that is. I'm sure he'd back me up if necessary."

Jane regarded her with distaste.

"No hard feelings, Jane," Alison continued. "But I do what I have to to get ahead. Like him or not, Daniel's one of the most respected artists around here, and if I want to have a little fun with him, it's my business."

"Did someone mention my name?" An unctuous man in his thirties with bleached, slicked-back hair, a dark goatee, and baggy white clothes strolled up to them and put his arm around Alison's waist. The first two buttons of his shirt were left undone, no doubt to show off his chest hair. "Wow. Not one, but two beautiful students. I must be in heaven. You're Jane, right? Amanda Lane's kid?"

"Yeah," Jane said reluctantly. Running into Daniel Dotson again did nothing to improve her mood; nor did talking about her mother, for that matter.

"Now that's an artist! Her old commune-mate founded this colony, you know. I saw her variety exhibit on the ruins of Angkor Wat, and those sculptures of crime scenes she put out this summer were really something. Nothing quite as searing or provocative as when I unveiled my own little masterpiece 'Paper Plate Genocide', but still not bad for a hippie."

"I'm sure she'd be flattered," Jane said coldly. As if Dotson was even half the artist her mother was. He had been showing off his so-called masterpiece in every class he taught. It was three spears stuck through a bunch of paper plates. Even worse was how everyone else in those classes hailed it as a great work of art and fawned over his alleged talent. Rumor had it that he slept with almost every female artist at Ashfield and got away with it because, as one of the other students put it, "genius does have its prerogatives."

"I've heard enough art talk for now. Eyes on me, darling," Alison kissed him lasciviously. "I'll see you on the bus."

"You're taking the bus back to Jersey? What happened to your hot rod?" Jane asked with a tinge of sarcasm.

"I'm afraid it just disappeared from the parking lot two days ago. Looks like I'll have to report it stolen."

Jane tried to sound sincere. "Gee. That's too bad."

He shrugged. "I try to look on the bright side. The brakes were failing anyway. That car's just like my inspiration: it never stops, honey." He gave her a cheesy wink.

"Don't call me 'honey', Mr. Dotson," Jane said. She turned to walk away.

"She's kind of prickly for someone who only got in here because of her old lady," Dotson muttered to Alison.

Jane heard him. Maybe she should have ignored it. But her art was everything to her, and for a sleazy hack like Dotson to question her talent was more than she could take. "Excuse me? I submitted a portfolio and was accepted just like everyone else."

"I noticed. It was okay for finger-painting. But you could do a better job of respecting your superiors."

"When I meet one, I'll be sure to let them know."

Dotson's face flushed. For a moment his urbane mask slipped, and he looked like a five-year-old about to throw a tantrum. But it only lasted a split second and then was gone, replaced with a theatrical leer. "You really do have an attitude problem. I guess you're just not a good student like Alison here. Are you sure you want to make an enemy of me, Jane? You could learn a thing or two about keeping your enemies ... _closer."_

Now Alison was staring at him-perhaps in shock, disgust, or both-but still she said nothing.

Jane's mouth formed an "O" of dismay. Now he was hitting on _her?_ That was too much. Jane knew she would be taking a major risk by getting on Daniel Dotson's bad side. But all the frustrations and insults she had suffered at this place suddenly welled up inside of her, and she snapped.

"Is that supposed to be some kind of sick joke?" she retorted furiously. "Or did you use up all your good lines when you were trying to screw every other female artist in the colony?"

There was an ominous silence. Even other students were staring at them now. The summer air seemed to blow 50 degrees colder.

Dotson narrowed his eyes. His voice grew quiet and menacing. "I guess you're not that serious about succeeding after all, Jane. It would be a shame if the gallery owners around here heard the same thing. Word travels fast in the art world."

"Don't you dare threaten me, you pervert. Or ... or I'll show you where to stick those damned spears of yours!" Jane picked up her bags and stormed off in the direction of the road.

When she was gone, Alison turned back to the self-proclaimed genius and shoved him irritably. "What the hell was that all about, Daniel?! Lay off. She's just a kid!"

"Hey, when I want your advice, I'll ask for it," he said. His hand lowered to her butt and gave it a hard squeeze. "And one more thing: don't forget who's giving you a free ride around here."

She glowered at him and walked away. He retrieved a flask from his pocket and took a swig from it as he watched her go.

Unbeknownst to either of them, a shapely young woman with short hair dyed silver and a skimpy black-and-charcoal ensemble crouched half-hidden behind the nearest building. She'd heard every word that was said, and the jealousy burning in her hazel eyes would have made even her most jaded colleagues take a backward step.

Ω

An ancient black van with Maryland plates coughed and lurched its way down the country roads, leaving a trail of black smoke that reached 30 feet beyond the battered rear bumper before rising into the air and becoming inseparable from a line of nasty storm clouds above the mountain.

"Betrayal ... yeah. Thrown out of the pack. Betrayal ... yeah. Stretched out on the rack," A skinny boy in his early twenties with black hair and a soul patch nodded his head rhythmically as he drove. He sang to himself in a low, throaty voice that was further distinguished by natural charisma and a smoking habit.

"Trent..."

The boy ignored the soft, airy voice next to him. "Betrayal ... betrayal, yeah. Betrayal ... "

"Trent," the second voice repeated. "Are you sure you can't do that later, honey?"

"No way, Mom. The music lives in me, you know? If I'm not singing, I'm not breathing."

"I don't mind if you practice lyrics. But, could you wait until we get there to write them down?"

Trent thoughtfully looked up from his notebook and pen and put his hands back on the wheel. Horns honked from the other side of the road as he acted just in time to keep the van on the road. Despite this jarring shift, his long-haired bandmate Jesse Moreno remained sound asleep in the back."Oh. Good idea, Mom. It's too bad you don't drive. I've been working on this song for a month. I think it's almost finished."

"That sounds wonderful. What inspired you?" Amanda Lane smiled indulgently at her fourth child. She exuded calm and serenity, floating in a sort of undefined place where women with inner and outer beauty seemed to reside indefinitely. She had long, full, honey-colored hair and pale blue eyes that could take in the entire world all at once. She was humbly dressed in a dull blue sleeveless shirt, purple drawstring pants, and a pair of worn-out moccasins. Her earrings were large and blue and shaped like teardrops, while several bangles and bracelets adorned her wrists.

While Amanda had been fairly well known as a traveling artist for several years, she was seldom recognized in public. Many dismissed her on sight as an absent-minded holdover hippie, but Amanda's talents extended further than sculpture and pottery. She noticed things. Details. Patterns. Facets. Flaws. She saw them everywhere she went. It wasn't enough to be in a certain location or use a certain medium; those were merely the initial steps. Before she went to work in Angkor Wat, Easter Island, or the Great Smoky Mountains, she must relax and take in the _everything_ of a place. She needed to sense the change of seasons in her bones, to see the rhythm the peoples' eyes danced to when they were truly happy, to feel the weight of night when it fell. This sense of everything was what allowed her to put all the details together and assemble a truly complete work. She had never been able to describe this ability in words, nor had she applied it to non-artistic ends. But it was always there.

Amanda hoped that her daughter had felt the everything of Ashfield, whatever that may consist of, and used it to produce natural and inspired art. But that wasn't the only reason she was coming along.

She once believed motherhood was everything; she had given birth to five children, Jane being her youngest, and simply set them free to do what they would. She and her husband Vincent declared almost no rules, set almost no boundaries. Summer, Wind, and Penny had simply scattered across the hemisphere, drifting from one occupation to another. Trent and Jane were left to tend the house where maintenance was undone and bills went unpaid for months.

It had been a mistake. Amanda was five times a mother. But she had never really been a parent.

This revelation set in gradually during the past year, rendering all her excuses hollow and cutting off all her escape routes until there was only one place left to go: back to Lawndale and a house that, until now, had never been home. She meant to patch things up, literally and figuratively.

" … And then Jesse threw up on my shoes," Trent was saying. "That's what gave me the idea to rhyme 'soiled' with 'spoiled'."

He turned left onto an even smaller dirt road, where a boy on a tractor sat watching them. Less than a mile ahead lay the Ashfield Community for the Arts.

Ω

Jane ignored the stares of the other artists as she stalked back to the colony entrance. The overcast afternoon sky grew increasingly dark, as if in sympathy with her mood.

She had just told off Daniel Dotson. Not exactly Salvador Dali or even Norman Rockwell, but still a semi-famous artist. It was the best feeling she'd had in a long time, and she was proud of the fact that she could stand up to him when most of the others just kowtowed. But she was also a bit scared. This man could do serious damage to her future career if he wanted to...and it wouldn't surprise her if he really was that petty. Just a rancid cherry atop the spoiled sundae that was her summer. The thought of going back to Maryland and Lawndale High didn't seem so bad after this.

She hoped Trent would be picking her up soon. Or at least while it was still light out. What had ever possessed her to come to this place, anyway? Distance, she decided. She'd been so upset with Daria for ... for ... well, the phrase sounded almost ridiculous when applied to her, but "stealing her boyfriend" was exactly what she did, and Jane hadn't relished the prospect of spending the whole summer with her after that - or worse yet, tagging along on their dates.

A telltale coughing and chugging interrupted her thoughts. Jane waved disconsolately as 'The Tank' pulled up, and wasted no time running to the van. She opened the side door and threw her bags inside, accidentally beaning Jesse in the head with one end of her duffel bag. He groaned in response, though whether he'd actually woken up was unclear.

"Oh. Sorry, Jesse. Didn't see you back there," Jane sighed as she leaned into the van. Her face was red, and the expression on it looked like something from one of her paintings. "Hey, Trent. If you don't mind, I want to get out of this place _yesterday,_ so if you can help me grab my pictures … " She trailed off when she noticed her mother in the passenger's seat.

"Hi, Janie," Amanda said cheerfully.

"Mom. You're back from Death Valley already?"

"I wanted to see you. I'm coming home for a while."

"Hmph. We'll see how long that lasts," Jane muttered. "Well, can you help me carry the rest of my stuff from the dorm? It's that one building sort of on the right that looks like all the other buildings. I hope that helps."

If Amanda was concerned about her daughter's bad mood, she didn't show it. But when they entered the dorm to collect her artwork, she stopped short and a frown appeared on her face. Jane's paintings seemed to physically strike her. The lines were aggressive and drawn in frustrated edges or harried swirls, the color palette stark and uncompromising, and as for the subjects … well, depicting suffering people was not a new theme for Jane, but now their anguish appeared disturbingly authentic.

"Janie, what's wrong?" she asked. "What happened here?"

Jane shuffled her boots and looked away. "I … look, I don't want to talk about it. Please. Let's just go."

Amanda would rather have stayed long enough to chat with her old friend Sedona, who owned the colony. But she nodded in agreement, making a mental note to ask Jane about this later. They carried the pictures to the Tank without speaking. All that remained was to start the engine.

Unfortunately, the Tank did not cooperate.

"Hmm," Trent sounded only mildly concerned. "Hey, Janie. Got your glue gun?"

"I don't think that'll fix it this time, Trent. It's coughing worse than usual. Besides, I'm out of glue."

"Darn," Trent leaned back in the seat. "We might be stuck here for a while."

They were all wondering what to do next (except for Jesse, who remained somnolent) when a large, shiny, almost new-looking silver and red bus coasted right past them and stopped in front of the colony.

Trent looked at Jane. "Hey. Maybe not. Looks like you got lucky."

"Yeah ... lucky," Jane bit her lip.

"Too bad I didn't bring any money."

"I think I did. Hmm. Where did I put it?" Amanda searched her pockets and a few other items of clothing before finding some bills in her left moccasin. She handed a few of them to Trent. "There. If you and Jesse don't mind waiting for a tow truck, I'd like to ride back with Jane."

"Um, you don't have to … " Jane looked at her mother and then at the bus again, which several of her fellow artists were already boarding. She quickly realized that going alone would leave her with nobody to talk to, and more importantly, nobody to back her up if that sleaze Dotson bothered her again. Her mother might be a space case, but she was better than nothing. "Okay. Fine."

Amanda cast another worried glance at her as she helped carry her things. Jane didn't want to stay at the colony a minute longer than necessary, yet she was reluctant to get on the bus also. Which suggested it was not just the colony that bothered her, but someone _from_ the colony who would be riding with them. Her senses, which had been on autopilot all day, suddenly heightened. She sensed a mystery, a tapestry of facts to identify and assemble.

 _Remember,_ she thought to herself, _take in the everything._


	2. The Last Ride

**Chapter Two: The Last Ride**

Ω

The bus rumbled down the highway, leaving Ashfield and the shadow of the mountains in the distance. But her daughter's memories, Amanda suspected, would not be so easily left behind.

Amanda knew Daniel Dotson only by reputation. He was viewed as one of the more inscrutable one-piece-wonders of the early 90s, and the piece in question was of course "Paper Plate Genocide." Most of his work since then had consisted of variations on the same narrow theme; hundreds of coffee filters impaled on bamboo sticks, and so on. In recent years he had done more teaching than creating. Her friend Vaclav Beran, the sculptor, had once attempted to do a collaborative exhibit with him and canceled within a week, politely citing irreconcilable differences to the press but telling Amanda in confidence that Dotson was "a skirt-chasing, self-aggrandizing twit." He was twice divorced, twice accused of infidelity and alcoholism by the woman in question, and his alimony payments were the stuff of legend. Despite the lurid rumors circulating about his personal life to this day, he was still a force to be reckoned with in New England.

Had Amanda known that he was now lecturing at Ashfield, she might have thought twice about sending Jane here. Her former commune-mate Sedona Thompson was a friend of Daniel's, so it wasn't exactly a surprise that she'd given him a job. The surprise was that he was sitting at the front of this bus, looking at her and Jane as if he'd just sucked on a lemon, and Jane was looking right back as if she wanted to take that proverbial lemon and jam it right down his throat.

Alarm bells, however faint, went off in Amanda's head. This was the sort of thing a responsible parent should be concerned about, right?

Probably. Yes.

Locking eyes with a fellow artist for whom she had no real respect, she stared him down until he finally got uncomfortable and returned his attention to the girl sitting next to him. Then she turned to Jane.

"Janie," she whispered so as not to disturb the other passengers. "Was he one of your instructors?"

"Yes. I told you I don't want to talk about it, Mom." Jane was looking out the window. The sky was getting darker by the minute, and lightning danced on the horizon. She felt her mother's hand on her wrist.

"Janie. Look at me."

Jane turned back irritably. Her mother seemed uncharacteristically worried. "Mom, what's the big deal? You never used to be so curious about what I did or who I talked to. Or whether the TV worked, or whether the bills were paid ... need I go on?"

Amanda felt slightly hurt, but she stayed focused. "If you just don't like Daniel, that's one thing. I know a lot of other artists who feel the same way."

"Really?"

"Yes. But if he said or did something that made you uncomfortable, then I should know about it."

Jane's expression went from doubtful to suspicious to suddenly resigned. "If you say so. Anyway, it's a long story. It started when I met this girl named Alison..."

Ω

 _One Hour Later_

"So, do you think you can fix it?" Trent said.

The mechanic, a short skinny man in his thirties with a Phillies cap and a nametag that said 'Myron', turned away from The Tank and spat on the floor of the garage in disgust.

"...I'll take that as a 'no'," Trent's face fell.

"What's wrong with it?" Jesse asked.

Myron wiped his forehead and leaned back against the wall. "How much time have you got, boys?"

"Well, we're gonna take arsenic if we don't make it by the time we're fifty," Jesse said.

"We're in a band," Trent explained. "Mystik Spiral. But we're thinking of changing the name."

Myron squinted. "Uh-huh. Well, where do I start? You got a blown head gasket, you got coolant in your oil, you got a cracked radiator, your fuel line is leaking, your exhaust and intake line are rusted, your front rotors are warped, you've snapped three lug nuts in your left rear wheel, your tires are bald, your alternator's ready to go, the body's held together by duct tape and superglue, we found a dead squirrel on your engine block ... "

Trent rubbed his chin slowly. "I wondered what that smell was."

"See? I told you it wasn't me," Jesse replied.

" ... And your starter's kaput," Myron finished. "Although how it was running before that, I have no idea."

"Hmm. What should we do?"

"I've got a friend who runs a demolition derby. If you let him use this thing as a prop, he'll give you fifty bucks and free tickets to the show."

Trent and Jesse looked at each other and promptly started brainstorming lyrics.

"A squirrel just died."

"Our starter is fried."

"If we don't think of something..."

"They'll smash up our ride!"

 _Spinning our wheels!_

 _Breaking the bank!_

 _Losing the war!_

 _Last stand of The Tank!_

"All right, all right, make it a hundred bucks!" Myron shouted. "Just stop singing!"

Ω

Lightning split the sky directly overhead, and a bone-rattling clap of thunder followed only seconds later. Despite this, and the rain pounding violently on the roof of the bus, Jane was still sound asleep. Relating the whole story seemed to have exhausted her. Jane told her mother everything - about this Alison girl hitting on her in one of the dorms, Daniel threatening her career, and Sedona's lax management of the colony that had allowed such things to happen. And instead of daydreaming about her next project or rhapsodizing about butterflies, Amanda had listened.

Anger and confusion still smoldered in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to confront Daniel right now, but making a scene and embarrassing her daughter was not the right way to deal with this. The responsible thing would be to speak with Sedona, find out what was going wrong at Ashfield, and recommend that she fire Daniel immediately. If her daughter's story and the persistent rumors were true, it would be the right decision, and the news it made in the art world might damage him to the point that he would no longer be a threat to Jane's future.

But Sedona was still back at the colony, so all she could do for now was make sure Daniel didn't try anything else. So far he hadn't moved from his seat. He didn't have to; even when a short balding man who was just boarding bumped into him and spilled some of his things on the floor, several art students had rushed to pick them up. The girl – Alison, about whom she'd heard so much already - was trying to engage him in conversation with limited success and glancing periodically at something in her lap. She was an attractive girl with long dark brown hair, a black tank top, a case of chronic bedroom eyes, and a smattering of meaningless arm tattoos. Daniel was ignoring her and opening a bottle of vegetable juice. As Amanda watched he felt around his left pocket, extracted a small silver flask, and emptied its contents into the bottle before drinking. It was a clear liquid; vodka, she suspected.

She felt a pinprick of envy deep inside, but remained unshaken. This would not be a good time to spoil seven years of sobriety. She had to focus on the puzzle before her, and how to put it together.

To find the everything, one had to observe the present surroundings and the people in them. Amanda decided to take a closer look at the bus and all the other passengers. It was a standard forty-foot stainless steel coach with a sedan door near the front and a restroom in back, driven by a heavyset bearded man who introduced himself as JJ and had been kind enough to help them load Jane's work into the outside luggage compartment. It had come down out of Scranton and would be making several stops in New Jersey and Delaware before heading down Highway 95 to Baltimore. It could comfortably seat around fifty people, but was less than half full when they boarded; now they were crossing the Jersey state line and only seven other passengers remained. Jane had been able to tell her the names of some of them.

Across from Daniel and Alison on the left sat a bald African-American man with rimless eyeglasses and an olive turtleneck sweater who was alternately glancing at a Ray Bradbury novel and surveying the inside of the bus as if he owned it. Jane recognized him from Ashfield but never caught his name. Two rows down was the balding man, who wore a long beige coat and prescription sunglasses. Since boarding, he had simply relaxed and occupied himself with a newspaper. Further down was Guy, an average-looking young man with thick glasses, wavy brown hair that needed brushing, a lavender polo shirt and black slacks. He had been watching Daniel with an expression of awe but now exchanged flirtatious glances with Jet, one of Jane's former roommates, who sat in the row across from him. She had scruffy brown hair, black lipstick with too much mascara, and a wine-colored shirt that looked like it had been caught in a paper shredder.

Next were herself and Jane; they sat near the back of the bus on the left side. Only two people were behind them. At the very back slouched a sullen young woman in a dark sweatshirt and a woolen hat that seemed out of place in the muggy weather; her eyes were hazel and seemed to pierce through everything. Jane had thought she looked familiar but wasn't sure. Finally, just one row back from them on the right was a man in his late fifties or early sixties. He was definitely the oldest passenger, and had already been on the bus when it stopped at Ashfield. He was tall and lean with sharp features. His beard was carefully trimmed, his longish hair thinning on top and gray enough to match his eyes. He wore a cheap brown suit and was holding a matching wide-brimmed hat in his lap.

When he saw her looking at him, he nodded in a friendly manner. "Quite a fearsome storm we've been caught up in. They'll be closing this road any minute now, just you watch."

"Oh, I don't mind," Amanda smiled and gestured to the atmospheric chaos just outside. "It's just nature's way of reminding us how small we are."

"Maybe so," the man's eyes crinkled. "Can't say I ever thought of it that way. Feeling small doesn't get you too far in my line of work. Hollis Bryson. Sheriff of Brookhaven, Virginia. For a few more hours, at least. I'm retiring today."

He offered his hand. She shook it gently. "Amanda Lane. I'm an artist, and so is my daughter." She gestured to the sleeping Jane.

"Is that right? You must be as proud of her as I am of my son. He's a lawman, too," Bryson proudly showed her a picture of a serious, dark-haired young man in a brown uniform. "Pennsylvania State Trooper. Just came back from visiting him, and a lot more nice folks are waiting to throw me a party in Brookhaven - that is, if I ever get there!"

The bus began to slow down as yellow lights flashed up ahead. Daniel and the man with the rimless glasses looked up irritably. Jet didn't look too worried, but Guy took the opportunity to sit next to her and calm her down anyway. The sweatshirt girl didn't even look up.

The sheriff sighed. "I was afraid of that."

JJ brought the bus to a stop and stood up in the aisle. "Folks, there seem to be some guys from the road crew up ahead. I'm going to see what they have to say."

He pulled the lever to open the door. A soaked, bedraggled man in a luminous poncho jogged up and leaned into the bus. "Evening! I don't think I have to tell you, but there's a big storm moving in. Road's still open, but for how much longer, I can't say. We've got flash flood warnings all over the place."

"Thanks," the driver said. "We'll take care."

The crew allowed the bus to proceed and JJ drove on at a reduced speed toward Salem, New Jersey. Rainwater buffeted the coach from all sides, and Amanda could hear the huge tires sloshing anxiously through it. Surely they wouldn't be able to go much farther, she thought. But the bus soldiered on for at least twenty more minutes. Guy and Jet continued flirting even more obviously than before, Daniel Dotson muttered occasional complaints to Alison before nodding off in his seat, and Bryson commented optimistically that they might make it after all. But eventually Amanda's premonition proved correct. As the bus approached a dip in the highway, JJ stopped again and stood up.

"Attention, everyone … I was hoping we wouldn't have to do this, but this is going to get worse before it gets better. There's a ton of water up ahead and we couldn't get through it if we tried."

Distressed reactions from all quarters. A few people groaned. Rimless man snapped his book shut irritably and muttered, "Are you serious?"

JJ was jovial and unflinching. "Yes, sir. Better safe than sorry. We're taking a small detour. There's a diner just off the frontage road here where you all can rest up and have some coffee 'til we get moving again."

The bus exited the highway, sloshing slowly and perilously down the ramp until finally groaning to a stop beside a small, solid-looking brown building. An old half-lit sign hanging over the door proclaimed 'Mom & Mel's.'

"This is it," JJ announced. "Everybody out, folks. There should be a pay phone inside. I'm going to call my dispatcher; after that you're free to use it. Meanwhile, for those of you coming back from Ashfield, your stuff will stay safe and dry in here."

Passengers began to sigh and grumble their way down the aisle, fumbling with jackets and handbags. The sheriff stood up readily but was almost knocked over as the sweatshirt girl suddenly barged through.

"Well, pardon _me,"_ he chuckled to himself. Amanda watched as the girl approached the front of the bus and stood directly in front of Daniel's seat, staring a hole through him.

"What's your problem, Paris?" Alison snapped at her. "Get over it and leave him alone already!"

The girl remained silent, but the look in her eyes was something approaching hatred. She turned and clambered angrily out the door. Alison turned back to Daniel with a worried look in her eyes and started to shake him awake.

Amanda gently did the same for Jane. "Honey."

"Mmmmfff. Lemme...smmmmff."

"Sorry, Janie. We had to stop because of the rain. Come with me and we can get some coffee, okay?"

"Uh-hmmmf. Coff … er, whatever you said," Jane said. Amanda put an arm around her shoulders to guide her, but Jane shrugged her off and lumbered unsteadily towards the front. She was almost there when she stepped on Daniel's bottle of vegetable juice, which had fallen from his hand.

"Dammit!" Jane almost fell, but used one of the seats to steady herself. She turned angrily on Daniel only to find that he wasn't yet awake to laugh at her, and Alison's attempts to rouse him were growing increasingly strenuous and desperate.

"Daniel? _Daniel!_ Wake up! What's wrong with you?"

"Besides the obvious," Jane added, poking the artist none too gently in the face as Amanda and Bryson watched in amusement.

Daniel's eyes fluttered half-open, but he seemed even more drowsy and out of sorts than Jane had moments ago. For the first time Amanda noticed the saliva running down his chin. It had left a wet spot on his shirt.

"Daniel, come on! They stopped the bus. We have to get out."

"Hmph. Have fun getting wet."

Alison shook him again. "Come on, will you? Get up!"

A long pause. Daniel looked vaguely troubled. "Can't."

"What the hell do you mean, you can't? How much did you drink anyway?!"

Amanda narrowed her eyes. So Alison knew about the flask.

"Too tired. Can't move my...legs," The man's speech was slurred. His whole body trembled. His eyes were fixed in one direction, and for the first time Amanda noticed his quick and shallow breathing. "Just lemme alone. I'm the greatest living artist of ... of... "

"That fellow don't look right," Sheriff Bryson frowned and started walking up the aisle. Amanda followed close behind him, but a sudden chill deep in her heart told her that whatever was happening, they were too late to stop it.

Daniel's mouth had stopped moving, though his eyes remained open. He had slumped in his seat at an unnatural angle. Jane backed away on shaky legs. Alison stood motionless over him as if in a trance, not reacting even when Bryson had to push her aside. He shook the man, then bent down and listened for signs of breathing. Finally he felt the artist's wrist, then his throat, and looked up slowly.

"He's dead."

Another clap of thunder resonated directly over the bus, but none of them heard it.


	3. Indifferent Strokes

**Chapter Three : Indifferent Strokes**

Ω

"Any ideas, sheriff?" Amanda rubbed the goosebumps on her arms and gazed sadly down at Daniel's prostrate form.

"Well, I'm no doctor, ma'am," Bryson's features were like stone as he continued to examine the body. "Or coroner, for that matter. You sure you want to be here for this?"

The bus was as cold as a tomb. Jane had already taken Alison inside the diner.

"I've done a lot of research for my work," Amanda said vaguely. "I'm not a professional, but maybe I can help."

The sheriff watched, somewhat incredulously, as the flower child bent down and gently touched Daniel's arm.

"He's so swollen. And his muscles are stiff."

"Already?" Bryson reached out and grasped the arm, then felt around the legs. "I'll be damned."

"You can see it in his face, too," Amanda glanced uncomfortably at Daniel's blank, lifeless eyes. "His pupils are dilated. Overproduction of saliva ... and did you notice how quick and shallow his breathing was before it just stopped?"

"No, but I'm glad you did." Bryson noticed the juice bottle nearby, and his eyes lit up. He pulled out a handkerchief and covered his hand with it before unscrewing the cap from the nearly empty juice bottle. He wrinkled his nose and recoiled. "Whoa. More than vegetable juice in there, that's for sure."

"It could be alcohol, sheriff. I saw him take a flask out of his left pocket."

Bryson reached in carefully and pulled it out. He uncapped it, sniffed, and coughed profusely. "Man alive! I never drank anything that smelled like that."

Amanda took a sniff herself and winced. While she was a lightweight compared to her brother-in-law, she'd tried just about every alcoholic beverage out there, and this was different. There was the familiar medicinal tang of cheap vodka, but also something else, something bitter and musty. "I'm not surprised, sheriff. If you had, I think you would have ended up just like Daniel."

"You don't mean..."

"He was poisoned."

Bryson stood up and let out his breath in a whoosh. He compressed the corpse's chest and, putting his nose close to the mouth, quickly detected a smell similar to the flask. "I think you're right. But what kind of poison could kill a man that fast? Strychnine?"

"With these symptoms..." Amanda shivered slightly and looked upward, thinking back to the toxicology books she'd studied for a piece called _Alkaloids in Alabama._ "I saw him drink from the bottle forty minutes ago. Strychnine acts even quicker than that, and it usually causes uncontrollable spasms. This is quite a bit like nicotine poisoning, but I don't think he was a smoker, and in any case he would've had to swallow a large amount of tobacco for this to happen. It's kind of like labernum poisoning, but that's almost never fatal. No, sheriff. We'll need an autopsy to be sure, but I think this is a case of coniine poisoning."

"Coniine?"

She nodded. "Hemlock."

Bryson looked at her with a new respect.

"Daniel wasn't much loved in the art world, sheriff, but he deserves justice as much as anyone else. If there's any other way I can help, just let me know."

Ω

Mom and Mel's was old and cramped and had too many random objects hung on the walls, ranging from a pair of horseshoes spray-painted gold to a partially melted hubcap. Jane, not to mention her friend Daria, would have made plenty of funny remarks about it under normal circumstances. Now she seemed not even to notice her surroundings. Even when a roly-poly man with thick red sideburns (most likely Mel) set a steaming mug of coffee down in front of her, she didn't blink. She simply stared into space.

Amanda searched her mind for something to say. _Are you okay?_ Jane had just seen someone die right in front of her. Of course she wasn't okay. _I'm here for you, honey._ That was meaningless. _Is there anything I can do for you?_ That didn't feel right, either. Jane wasn't a friend or relative of Daniel's. She hadn't even liked him.

"Mom," Jane said faintly. Amanda looked up. "This is really messed up."

"Yes, Janie," she nodded. "It is."

"He was, like ... what, forty or something?"

"Thirty-seven."

"That's crazy," Jane looked her in the eye. "I mean, he wasn't a nice guy, but this isn't right. Somebody has to be responsible for this. You know what I mean?"

Amanda nodded slowly. "I know. That's why I'm going to do something about it."

Jane stared at her as if she had lobsters coming out of her ears. "Mom" plus "do something" simply did not compute. _"You_ are? Mom, you didn't do anything when Trent slept in a tent in the backyard for six months. You didn't do anything when Summer ate Pez candy for a whole year. You weren't there when Trent and I got picked up by the cops in Fremont. You weren't there to tell me everything was okay when Tommy Sherman died! But you're going to do something for Daniel Dotson?"

An awkward pause ensued as Jane struggled to comprehend her mother's reasoning and Amanda processed the sudden change of subject.

"I have to start somewhere," she replied, looking down at the table. "Everything you said about the past is true. Maybe a lot of the decisions I made were wrong. I can't change them now. And I can't do anything for Daniel, either. He's already dead. But I can help find out who killed him."

Jane sighed and picked up her coffee. "Okay, whatever you say. Sorry I snapped at you. It's been a rough day."

"You have nothing to apologize for. Whatever you want to talk about when we get home, we can talk about it. I'll be there."

Jane looked as if she wasn't sure whether to believe her or not, but she nodded. "Well, if you do want to help, you should probably ask Wyatt Earp over there how Daniel died."

"I have, sweetie. The sheriff will tell everyone in a minute. For now, let's just get warm and be happy that everyone else is okay."

Amanda returned to her thoughts. Daniel Dotson had almost certainly died of hemlock poisoning. She didn't know how or why, and there was very little time to learn those essentials, never mind the _everything._ Sheriff Bryson had decided not to move the body until the local authorities arrived, but alerting them was proving difficult. As JJ the driver had already discovered, the phone in the diner was dead. A few of the passengers had cellular phones, but none of their calls were getting through. For now they had only each other to look to - for company, for help, and for suspects in Daniel's death. Word had already spread around the diner, and as most of the stranded passengers were from the colony, they took the news hard. Some were weeping.

The sheriff was in a difficult position. He was well out of his jurisdiction and had no authority to hold these people. It was only the storm that kept them here, and that was obviously temporary. The time for passive observation had come and gone. This was a far greater mystery than anticipated, and to unravel it Amanda must take a more active role. Bryson was sitting down with Alison Caldwell - Amanda knew her full name, now - in an effort to comfort her, and probably to ask a few questions. She wanted to hear what they were saying. With a promise to Jane that she would be right back, she made her way over to their table.

"I just can't believe it," Alison was telling the sheriff. She acknowledged Amanda with a nod, appearing deeply shaken but surprisingly calm. Perhaps she feared that Jane had told her about that night in the dorm, but she also remembered how Amanda tried to comfort her minutes ago. "Hi. You're Jane's mom, right?"

"Mrs. Lane," Bryson looked stern, but as if recalling how helpful she'd been on the bus, he relaxed and motioned for her to sit. "So you say you knew this fellow pretty well."

"Yeah. He was my ... boyfriend, I guess you could say. It was nothing really serious, just for a few laughs, you know? And he said he could help me get my work out there, so I thought, 'why not?'"

"I see," Bryson scribbled something down on a notepad. "Did you ever notice any signs of depression? Any - "

"No," Alison said firmly. "Daniel may have been a lot of things, but suicidal wasn't one of them."

"Had he eaten or drank anything unusual, to your knowledge?" Bryson put a slight emphasis on the word "drank."

Alison gave a chuckle that sounded more like a cough. "Not for him. He always had that weird vegetable juice. He said it gave him more 'stamina'."

"Judging from the flask we found in his pocket, Miss, I don't think that's all he was drinking."

The young woman met his eyes reluctantly. "You're right. That was vodka. He took it with almost everything. I told him that he should cut down, but ... that was Daniel. He was drinking even before we left."

"From the same flask?" Amanda broke in, watching her closely.

"Sure," Alison shrugged. "He only had one. I don't think he ever let it out of his sight, though. Until I started staying with him, I never knew he had such a big problem. I made him promise to put it in his carry-on bag, but I guess he couldn't even do that."

Amanda frowned thoughtfully. For someone likely to be the prime suspect in the coming investigation, Alison was surprisingly forthcoming. She had been sitting next to Daniel for the whole ride and admitted to staying with him during their final weeks at the colony, which meant that if someone had poisoned his vodka, she was the only one with easy access to that flask. And yet, Amanda felt as though she were missing something. Neither she nor Bryson had mentioned the cause of death to anyone, including Alison. If she were responsible, she would have known the reason for Amanda's question and tried to be as evasive as possible. Instead, she'd been perfectly candid.

"Thank you, Miss. I may have additional questions for you later," said Bryson. It sounded more like a promise than a suggestion. He stood, held up his badge, and addressed everyone else in the diner. "Folks? The name is Hollis Bryson, and I'm sheriff of Brookhaven, Virginia."

The atmosphere changed immediately. The air became closer. Everyone looked up and gave him their full attention. A few passengers looked relieved, others more unsettled. Guy took the opportunity to put his arm around Jet once again. The girl in the sweatshirt began to tremble.

"I realize Virginia is not New Jersey and I have no official jurisdiction here, but as a lawman, I do feel obligated to assume authority until we can contact the local police. As you all know this poor artist fellow has just passed, and I'd like to find out how and why. I'd appreciate your cooperation in learning your names and just why all of you were on this bus."

"No need to beat around the bush, sheriff," the young man with rimless glasses spoke up. "Obviously you think he was murdered and one of us did it."

"Unfortunately, I think 'obvious' is the right word, sir. That is, unless Mr. Dotson were to intentionally drink poison."

A few gasps. Alison looked sick. JJ grimaced and looked suspiciously down at his coffee. Amanda watched the sheriff with interest. He may be unusually blunt for an elected official, but he also had a flair for the dramatic that made people stop and take notice of him.

"And from what I gather," Bryson continued. "He was rather successful, comfortably employed, and did not have a problem with depression."

"You can say that again," Jane muttered.

"Watch what you say about him, Lane!" Guy turned violently in his chair, his shoulders trembling with passion. "That man was one of the great artists of our time. Everybody respected him - except for _you."_

"That's for sure," Jet chimed in.

Amanda's oft-dormant protective instincts rose immediately to the surface. She returned to her daughter's side and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I think we all should be careful what we say, until we determine the facts. The sheriff has asked us to introduce ourselves. My name is Amanda Lane."

Guy's eyes were as wide as dollars. "Wait. You're _that_ Amanda Lane?"

"The death artist?!" the sweatshirt girl blurted out.

"I've sculpted many things from both life and death," Amanda said simply. "This is my daughter Jane. I came to keep her company on her way home from Ashfield."

The man with rimless eyeglasses spoke up again. His Bradbury novel was still beside him, and he sat up straight with his hands folded on the table. "I'm Percy Rankin. I work in oils, and I'm also on my way back from the colony. With all due respect to Mr. Dotson's memory, I don't see any reason to pretend he was universally loved. He promoted himself quite a bit and I honestly didn't learn much in his classes. With that said, I never met him personally and I certainly don't know anything about his death."

"Thank you, Mrs. Lane and Mr. Rankin. We're off to a good start," Bryson turned to Guy, who was shooting a nasty look at Percy. "How about you?"

"I'm Guy Lipinski," the young man said fiercely. "I make abstract art - like Mr. Dotson. That man was a genius, and I hope whoever did this to him gets a taste of their own medicine!"

"Calm down, Guy," Jet patted his arm. "You can't expect these people to understand. Something tells me dogs playing poker is more up their alley."

Bryson (who, as a matter of fact, _did_ have a picture of dogs playing poker on his wall), raised his eyebrows. "And you are ... ?"

"Jeri Williams. My friends call me Jet. I'm the junior art critic for a magazine in Dover and I do a little painting of my own - just like Paris over there. Isn't that right, Paris?" she waved with mock affection at the girl in the hooded sweatshirt, who looked like she wanted to sink into the floor. The sleeves of her shirt had been cut into tassels that ended in tiny beads and fluttered gracefully over her hands. "And I'm afraid I didn't even know Daniel all that well. Not as well as some of us, at least." She looked pointedly at Paris and Alison.

Bryson sighed, as if anticipating that it was going to be a long evening. He turned to Paris. "I guess that brings us to you."

She jumped, and could not seem to meet his eyes. "L-like she said. I'm Paris Elwood and I'm a painter."

"Who thinks white-on-white is inspired art," Jet snickered, earning a death glare this time.

"That's enough," the sheriff said firmly. "Now, Paris, how did you know Mr. Dotson?"

Paris hesitated again, but another look around the room seemed to galvanize her. "I was in his classes, too. We, um ... we knew each other. Intimately. That is, we used to."

Guy and Jet smirked at each other. Alison narrowed her eyes. Amanda looked inquiringly at Jane, who nodded in response. Bryson was so startled he said nothing for five seconds, looking back at Alison for an explanation that was not forthcoming, but he managed to play it cool. "I see. And you wouldn't happen to know anything about - "

"No!" Paris cried. "I mean, um, no sir. I really don't."

"Uh-huh," Bryson looked suspicious now. "May I ask where you live, Miss Elwood?"

"Scranton."

"Would that be the Scranton back in Pennsylvania? Pretty well north of Salem, wouldn't you say?"

"I guess."

Bryson looked relaxed and casual, but his eyes never left her. "Perhaps it's just my own insatiable curiosity, Miss Elwood, and if so I hope you'll bear with me, but how did you happen to find yourself on a bus headed southeast?"

"Um ... I made a mistake."

"You mean to say you took the wrong bus for over a hundred miles?"

Paris winced. "No. Look, if you're asking if I got on this bus because Daniel was on it, the answer is yes. I wanted to see him. I wanted to talk to him. That's all. I did _not_ kill him!"

"Wasn't saying you did, Miss. Wasn't saying that at all," the sheriff took a look around the room, making it clear to everyone else that while he may have found a likely suspect, it didn't mean they were in the clear. "And how about you, sir?"

This time he addressed the balding man who had boarded south of Ashfield. He had said and done so little of note that no one really noticed he was still there, sitting pleasantly in the corner and reading his newspaper. The man looked up and acknowledged the sheriff with a polite nod. He had removed his coat to reveal a dark suit, and wore a pair of tinted prescription glasses.

"Russell Johns," he said in a high-pitched, gravelly voice. "I work with computers. I'm riding down from Reading for a family reunion here in Jersey. I was almost there when I found myself stranded with all the rest of you."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir. Sounds like awfully bad luck."

The man half-smiled. "Considering the circumstances, Sheriff Bryson, I'll count my blessings. I wish I could be as helpful as the rest of these people, but I've never heard of any mountain colony called Ashfield and I've never met this Daniel Dotson either."

Bryson nodded and turned to the last person who had been on the bus. "JJ, I don't suppose ... "

The driver's smile was an infectious gleam of white through his bushy beard. "No, sir! Wasn't me. Never even saw that guy before. He complained about the fee before his girlfriend over there" - he motioned to Alison - "told him to pay up and sit down. That's all I knew about him before you came in and told me was dead. Damn shame."

"Thank you kindly, folks. Make sure you all stick around, now," the sheriff said.

Percy shrugged. "Where exactly are we going to go, sheriff? It's pouring rain outside."

"True," Bryson paused before taking his seat. His steely eyes swept over every person in the diner. "Not only that, but considering it's very likely that somebody in this room is responsible for a death ... anyone who does disappear will probably be our prime suspect, now won't they?"

The other passengers all glanced uneasily at each other. No one answered, but everyone got the message.

Ω

Time passed. The night grew darker, the storm remained ferocious, the sheriff continued to take notes, and nobody attempted to leave Mom and Mel's. Amanda grew anxious, alternating between fidgeting at the table and deep thinking sessions that resembled meditation - both of which quickly got on her daughter's nerves.

"Mom, you're really having kittens over this," Jane finally observed. "Why is it so important to you to catch a killer? There are people who get paid to do this stuff, you know. Can't you just relax and leave it to them?"

"They're not here, Janie. I am. And they don't know anything about these people. We do, even if it's not much. We have to use that. Do you have any ideas? Anything at all that might help?"

"I don't know! Go talk to somebody we _don't_ know about. Like the bald guy over there, if it'll give you something to do. Besides, you're making me nervous."

Amanda perked up. "Janie, that's a wonderful idea! I knew I could count on you. I'll be right back."

"Take your time."

Amanda crossed the room, drawing a few tentative nods and waves from the artists, and stopped at the corner table.

"May I sit down, Mr. Johns?"

"Certainly," he gestured stiffly to the chair opposite. His smile resembled a grimace, as though it was rarely used, and set off several wrinkles around his eyes beneath the translucent lenses. "I'm not usually one for company, but then this whole day has been unusual."

Amanda sat down and smiled. Though he had ways of hiding it, this man was watching her – and everything else – closely. His manners were excellent, but there was something behind them, a cool and glassy surface that her intuition could not penetrate. It made her uneasy. The only way this man would help her was by mistake, or perhaps idly, if he believed the other person was too dim to warrant his attention.

Amanda quickly set about giving him that impression by going into full "spaced-out hippie" mode. "Thank you. I want to feel the aura of everyone in this room before we leave. The only way to be at one with the universe is to recognize every person in it."

"Is that right," Johns responded flatly. "I'm glad I could help, then. So, how about the weather?"

"The forces of nature are making themselves keenly felt," Amanda said dreamily, raising her arms to the heavens. "If you're not careful, you can lose yourself in them."

"Hmm. I must say I've never had that problem," the man looked down at his watch. He was already getting bored with her.

Good, Amanda thought. "Would you help me center myself? It always helps me to focus on something. I know … the art colony! Ahhh. My daughter and I just came from there."

"You don't say," he rolled his eyes when he thought she wasn't looking. "Unfortunately, like I told the sheriff, I don't know anything about that place."

"Oh, one can't be certain, Mr. Johns. Your aura is wide and distinct. It exudes truth and an understanding of even the most distant vibrations." Amanda resisted the urge to giggle at her own random new-age babbling.

"What do you mean by that?"

"The colony, for instance. Why, you knew what it was called, and that it was near a mountain! Even though the owner never advertises Ashfield anywhere except in little paper brochures at a few museums. And even though you haven't spoken with anyone but me and the sheriff since you got on the bus, and none of us has mentioned the colony by name! Yes, your aura must be very discerning indeed."

Johns paused only for a moment, but it was telling. He quickly relaxed and shrugged his shoulders. "I overheard it when we first walked into the diner. Before you and the sheriff came in."

Amanda knew he was lying, but she nodded happily. "Of course. I should have guessed."

"Mm-hm," Johns was no longer paying attention as he leaned over the table to grab some sugar for his coffee. As he did so, one side of his suit jacket hung open and briefly exposed a gun in a shoulder holster.

Amanda felt a chill at the sight. She rubbed her arms and stood up from the table. "It was very enlightening chatting with you, Mr. Johns. I hope you have a safe and meditative trip home."

"You too."

Amanda floated back across the room, keeping up the act just in case he was watching. It would look suspicious if she walked straight over to the sheriff, so she continued down the back hallway to the ladies' room instead. She finished quickly and was pulling the door open again when she heard voices just outside. Carefully, she kept the door open a crack and put her ear to the opening.

"Are you completely out of your mind?" One voice demanded in a livid whisper.

"Paris, let's not do this here," the other snapped.

"Just what the hell are you trying to drag me into?" the first voice insisted. She sounded desperate and frightened.

"Don't bullshit me, honey. Don't even try. We both know it was you!"

"Please! I swear, I swear to God I didn't – "

"I don't want to hear it. I'll decide what to do about it later. For now, just keep your mouth shut in there, you hear me?"

Footsteps. One of them was coming into the bathroom. Amanda quickly positioned herself in front of the mirror, fiddling with her earrings and humming a Led Zeppelin song. Alison walked in a moment later.

"Hi," Amanda said lightly.

"Hi," Alison hesitated, probably wondering if the other woman had overheard her conversation. As Amanda continued humming and smoothing down her hair, she finally relaxed and went into one of the stalls.

Amanda left the bathroom and pondered what to do next. So Alison and Paris both suspected each other. She could have guessed that much, since they were the ones closest to Daniel. But there was something else, some urgency in how they spoke to each other, that suggested an additional connection. And then there was the matter of Russell Johns being armed. The rich tapestry of facts and possibilities grew ever more complex in her mind. She could only dream of what the finished version might look like.

For now, it would be best to check in with the sheriff again.


	4. Double Jeopardy

** Chapter 4 : Double Jeopardy **

Ω

When Amanda came back into the dining room, she saw that Jane had changed tables and was talking quietly with Percy, the well-spoken young man with the book. Jane nodded to let her know everything was all right. Amanda smiled and moved on to Bryson, who was playing a game of solitaire with a deck of cards from the bar. "Sheriff, are you busy?"

"Bored stiff. Just tried the phone; still no luck."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Amanda sat down next to him. "I've been thinking more about the poison itself. If I'm right and it is hemlock, that could make the investigation more difficult."

"Don't you worry about that. We've got plenty of suspects here with a possible motive," Bryson glanced up to make sure Alison wasn't coming back to the table yet. "It's just a matter of narrowing 'em down."

"I wasn't thinking of motive, sheriff. I was thinking of means and opportunity."

Bryson took a bite of buttered toast. "No big puzzle there, Mrs. Lane. There's plenty of hemlock in Pennsylvania if you know how to look for it."

"Yes, but I'm not sure how useful it would be. Hemlock is by far the most toxic when it blooms in spring, and this is late August. All you would find on a hemlock plant now are dry seeds."

"They're still poisonous, aren't they?"

"Oh, yes. Poisonous enough to make a person sick - but to kill them? How many roots or seeds would that take? Even if you found enough of them, you would have to grind them all up. That's an awful lot of powder to mix into eight ounces of vodka. I feel that the killer must have had the coniine in liquid form, where it would easily dissolve into alcohol."

"I suppose so. That's good thinking, ma'am," Bryson stroked his beard and smiled thinly. "But you can't just walk into a drugstore and buy a bottle of that stuff. I guess you could squeeze it out of the plants in the spring and save it for later. But if our murderer planned it that far in advance, why would he do it right now with all these people around and a big storm moving in? I'm damned if I can figure it, but I'll leave that to the local authorities. The most important thing, Mrs. Lane, is _who_ could have slipped that poison into Mr. Dotson's drink. And between you and me, I'm leaning toward Miss Caldwell."

"Alison? How?"

"Easy. She bunked with him at the colony, waited for a chance to tamper with his flask, and today just happened to be her lucky day. Who else would've had a chance? He hardly let that thing out of his sight."

Amanda frowned thoughtfully. Yes, Alison was the most likely suspect ... and the conversation Amanda had overheard between her and Paris was interesting to say the least. But something just didn't add up. "I agree that she's going to be the prime suspect, but there's just one thing that troubles me."

"What's that?"

"All of the circumstantial evidence we've gathered points to Alison. But the only reason we know those circumstances is because Alison told us. If you had just committed a murder, would you tell a story that so clearly implicated yourself? Of course not. You would try to divert suspicion to someone else. And yet Alison never did that once. She seemed more concerned about Daniel than she was about our questions. Even when I asked her about his flask."

"I've run into some real good actors in my time, ma'am," Bryson was patient, but unmoved. "Why did you ask that question, anyway? About it being the same flask and everything?"

"Because I'm not at all convinced that it was. Daniel carried a generic steel hip flask that you could buy at any store. Who's to say the clean one wasn't replaced with a poisoned one before he left the colony, or even after he got on the bus?"

Bryson squinted doubtfully. "I think you're going out on a limb, Mrs. Lane. Nobody could have taken Mr. Dotson's flask out of his pocket and slipped a new one inside in front of all the other passengers with him just sittin' there."

Amanda leaned forward. She felt another idea dawning on her, a possibility that no one had yet considered. "That's true, sheriff. But maybe they didn't have to."

Before she could explain what she meant, another round of lightning and thunder rocked the building. A moment later, every light in Mom and Mel's went dark.

"Everybody stay calm now," Bryson's voice rose over the general outcry of fear and exasperation. "The storm might've knocked out the power. We'll just have to ride it out, that's all. Mel, do you happen to have any candles?"

Mel's husky voice responded from behind the counter. He was genial but had spoken little since they arrived, and had a tendency to repeat what little he did say. "No need, boss, no need at all. Got a generator out back. Get this place humming again. Right out back. Humming and going again before you know it, yes sir."

"I'll go with you in case you need any help," JJ said.

"Much obliged to you, much obliged."

The driver's heavy footsteps followed Mel's down the hallway and through the rear exit past the bathrooms.

"How do you like that?" the sheriff muttered to Amanda. "Nasty storm, stranded in Jersey, dead body, no electricity. Makes you wonder what else can go wrong on this trip."

Amanda was so committed to her current train of thought that she barely reacted to the outage. When it finally reached the station, she jumped up from the table with excitement and something approaching panic.

"Sheriff, I think there is a great deal more that can go wrong if we don't get out to the bus right now."

She heard him standing up beside her. "As usual I have no idea what you're talkin' about, but I trust you. Lead the way."

They bumped and jostled their way to the front door of the shadowy dining room. The rain was still coming down in sheets as they draped their jackets over their heads and ran for the bus. To their surprise, the door was already open, and as Amanda jogged up to Daniel's body and threw open the overhead compartment, she cried out in disappointment.

"We're too late," she moaned, placing her hands on top of her head. "Someone has already gone through his bag."

Bryson looked up to see that the dead man's possessions had been frantically searched. Various art magazines and articles of clothing lay halfway out of his carry-on bag. "Damn it. So much for leaving the scene of the crime undisturbed. I should have told JJ to lock the door."

"It's much worse than that, sheriff. Unless I'm mistaken, we may have lost a very important piece of evidence!"

"How do you mean?"

"Do you remember when Alison told us she asked Daniel to keep his vodka in his carry-on bag? Well, suppose he did? Suppose he had been carrying a flask for so long that he checked his pocket without thinking about it? My brother-in-law does that all the time, and so did I when I drank. It was like a reflex."

Bryson's eyes were taking on that peculiar light again. "Go on … "

"And suppose that by the time he checked his pocket, the killer had already slipped a new flask into it. One that was laced with coniine. He was tired, he was distracted; he simply assumed that the flask had been in his pocket all the time. Suppose that's what the killer was counting on!"

Bryson rubbed his beard again. "That's a lot of supposin', ma'am, but I admit it's an interesting theory."

"More than that; if I'm right, it means our killer must have been someone who was familiar enough with Daniel to know his habits, and that narrows down our list of suspects."

"Okay, Mrs. Lane, let's say you're on to something. He was awake every minute of that ride 'til he started boozing. _How_ did they slip him the second flask?"

The lights in the diner came back on, and Amanda wasted no time. "If you'll follow me, sheriff, that's just what I intend to find out."

The sheriff scrambled to keep up with her as she rushed off the bus. "You sure have a lot of energy for a hippie!"

Ω

Back in the diner, Paris and Alison were sharing another hushed and unpleasant conversation in the hallway. JJ and Mel were coming back from the generator, and Guy and Jet were holding hands while debating whether Félix Guattari was right about postmodernism being nothing more than the last gasp of modernism.

Percy and Jane were still chatting. She was the first person he'd actually enjoyed talking to in quite a while. They both loved art, had parents who traveled a lot, and agreed that Ashfield was almost creatively barren and excessively preoccupied with trends.

"'Scuse me folks, 'scuse me if you please," said Mel. "Got the lights all fixed now, fixed up good as you please. Generator's running."

"Well, that's certainly good news," Russell Johns said, drumming his fingers on the table. "But I'd be much happier if we could all get out of here. I certainly won't be hard to find if the police want to ask me anything."

Guy crossed his arms and nodded. "Neither will I! This whole thing is a waste of time. We already know who our suspect is."

Alison and Paris both looked at him.

"I didn't mean either of you! Sheesh."

Paris wasn't about to relax. "I don't trust you, Guy. You're almost as bad as Daniel. You'd sell any one of us down the river."

"No one insults Daniel Dotson in front of me!" Guy stood up furiously, knocking his chair back.

"Being dead doesn't make him a saint, you know!" Paris retorted.

Guy was storming over to confront her when an unexpectedly strong arm reached out and stopped him cold.

 _"Enough!_ Settle down, all of you."

It was Johns. No one had even seen him get up, but he easily shouldered Guy back into his seat and turned to the other artists with an expression as stormy as the weather.

"As long as I'm stuck here, let me enjoy my coffee and my newspaper in peace. The last thing I need is to babysit a bunch of noisy twenty-somethings in a greasy spoon diner."

Mel huffed in outrage behind the counter, but no one else made any trouble.

"Well done, Mr. Johns," said Sheriff Bryson. He and Amanda had been standing virtually unnoticed in the doorway. "I couldn't have said it any better."

"You're too kind, sheriff," Johns quickly sat down again.

"Don't be so modest," Amanda said lightly. "You have such a strong personality, and a talent for defusing risky situations. It's hard to believe you would need any more protection than that! Assuming you really are a computer programmer, that is."

"I ... I don't know what you mean by that," he said crossly, not looking up from the paper.

"I think you do," Amanda positioned herself carefully behind him, where an empty coffee mug was within her reach - not an ideal weapon, but solid enough to hit him over the head with if things suddenly turned violent. "And since one passenger has already died, I think it would be best if you explained to the sheriff why you're wearing a gun."

Percy looked unnerved for the first time. Guy moved bravely in front of Jet. It was so quiet that Amanda could hear a drop of water hit the floor.

The sheriff stood, his hand already at his belt. "Keep your hands where I can see them, Mr. Johns."

"You're very good, lady," Johns raised his arms and gave Amanda a withering look over his shoulder. "Sheriff, I assure you I can explain."

"I would hope so," Bryson approached him casually. "But everyone's a mite skittish right now, so if you wouldn't mind, I'll just take that gun off your hands first."

Johns looked displeased, but he didn't move. "You'll find my identification and my permit in my right pocket, and the gun in a holster on my right shoulder."

"Thank you. Nice and easy, now," the sheriff removed both the ID and the piece, and everyone in the room breathed a collective sigh of relief. Bryson peered closely at his card and nodded, satisfied. "Very interesting. Would you care to tell us what this is all about?"

"What's to tell?" Jet interrupted. "He's obviously your prime suspect. Why else would he be packing heat on a bus?"

"For the same reason the sheriff is, young lady," Johns snapped. "It's part of my job. And since Mrs. Lane here has blown my cover, I guess I might as well explain. I'm an investigator for an auto insurance company. I was ordered to come out here and conduct surveillance on the late Mr. Dotson. Several years ago, he reported that his car had been stolen and we received a tipoff that he had merely sold it to a shop to be cut up for parts. We looked into it, but we didn't find any concrete evidence of fraud. When he called my company yesterday to report another stolen vehicle, they sent me here to follow him and find out whatever I could."

Amanda relaxed. "I see. I suppose Daniel's death complicates things."

 _Drip._ That same noise again. She wondered where it was coming from.

"I intend to report it to my superiors as soon as the phones are working again. In the meantime, sheriff, I'd feel much better if you returned my gun now. If there's a killer on the loose, then I want to protect myself."

"I can appreciate that, sir, but I think it would be best if I held on to it for now. Credentials are so easily forged these days, and considering you've already fibbed once about your occupation and what you were doing here ... "

"This is ridiculous!" Johns retorted. "I keep my investigations on a need-to-know basis. Besides, you said it yourself; you have no jurisdiction here."

"That's right!" Guy said impatiently from a few tables over. "And I for one am getting tired of sitting here like a rat in a cage. Let's just cut to the chase. There's only one person here who's crazy enough to kill Daniel Dotson, and I'm looking at her!"

He pointed to Jane. She stared back at him with revulsion. "Just because I'm the one artist at Ashfield who wasn't kissing his feet or jumping in his bed, that means I killed him? I think you're the one who's lost your marbles, Guy. Assuming you ever had them in the first place."

"That's a baseless accusation," Percy agreed, taking the opportunity to stand up for her. "I don't know who killed Mr. Dotson and I want justice for the man as much as anybody. But sitting around pointing fingers at each other is not the way to get it."

Guy threw up his hands in frustration. "Come on, Percy! That's exactly what I'm trying to say. We don't have to point fingers because we already have our prime suspect!" He looked at Jane again. "She's the one who threatened to kill him before we even got on the bus!"

"That settles it for me," Jet added. "Let's just get some rope and tie her up so we can all relax."

Jane turned pale. Amanda walked over and stood in front of her. "No one in this diner is going to touch my daughter. And no one who spent sixty days with her is going to tell me, after seventeen years, that she is a killer."

Guy paused and fidgeted. "I … I apologize if we've offended you, Mrs. Lane. But I heard that she threatened him and I believe it!"

Bryson put his hands on his hips. "And just where did you hear that, Mr. Lipinski?"

 _Drip._

Guy was stuttering. "Well, um … that is -"

"I told him, sheriff," Paris intervened. "Because I saw it myself. It wasn't exactly a death threat, but she was arguing with Daniel and Alison before they left. Angrily. And she made an off-color remark about what Mr. Dotson could do with the spears he used to make Paper Plate Genocide. Admit it, Jane. Did you or didn't you?"

Jane stood up calmly. "Yeah, Paris. I did. I don't deny it. He was hitting on me and threatening my career. I don't even remember why. It was just some stupid argument. And if I went around poisoning people just because they bothered me, there'd hardly be anyone left in Lawndale, Maryland. And you didn't have to _see_ him die, okay? I was standing right there."

She paused, looking around at the faces of her fellow suspects.

"And that shouldn't have happened. He had a lifetime ahead of him. He deserved to finish it. I'm not going to take that away from somebody. That … that's just sick. No, I didn't like him. I didn't respect him. I wanted to get away from him. That's all I wanted. To put this stupid colony behind me and get some decent pizza and move on with my life!"

Jane turned away from them and looked at Amanda. Now she really needed her mother, and for once her mother was there. Amanda embraced her tightly, butterfly metaphors be damned.

"I want to go home," Jane whispered to her.

"We will, darling. We will."

Guy and Jet looked at each other and then down at their table. Paris looked rather embarrassed herself. Alison seemed lost in thought. Johns was sitting down again and looking away, uncomfortable with the show of sentimentality.

The sheriff quickly moved to settle things down. "As I was about to say, folks, I think we're all anxious to get home at this point and we'll get there that much more easily if you just bear with me and wait 'til we can contact additional help."

Water dripped yet again.

As Amanda sat down and Jane leaned wearily against her, she turned to follow the noise. When she found the source, she caught Bryson's eye and motioned him to come over.

"Sheriff," she whispered in his ear. "Our prime suspect must be whoever went out to the bus and searched through Daniel's bag. Right?"

"That's what I figure."

"In that case, if Paris has been sitting here like all the rest of us for the past hour, then why is her sweatshirt dripping wet?"

Ω

"Whoa," Trent coughed as he shouldered open the stubborn door and walked into Myron's Auto. "I never knew The Tank had that many parts."

"Yeah. Was it supposed to catch on fire?" Jesse followed him, also dripping wet, undaunted by the fact that the lights were off and the shop was nearly pitch black.

"I didn't see that part. I think that was when I fell asleep," Trent felt along the wall for the lights. "You'd better hurry to the bathroom and look for your necklace. I don't think Myron wanted us in here after hours."

"Thanks. I forgot to put it back on after I gave myself a bath with the soap dispenser."

Trent stubbed his toe on something and muttered an "ouch." Except for The Tank being crunched into a thousand pieces, it had been a pretty good night. The demolition derby was cool: a few dozen cars smashing into each other in a dilapidated arena with thunder booming all over and rainwater leaking through the roof in a dozen places. They couldn't wait to tell Nick and Max when they got home. Trent had already come up with several song ideas; Jesse suggested "Thunderdome", but Trent was pretty sure that had already been used.

The guitarist, as if immune to the dark, was already walking into the bathroom by the time Trent found a switch. Dingy yellow lights partially illuminated the shop and revealed a chaotic mess of car parts all over the cement floor: hubcaps, headlights, bumpers, mirrors, batteries, engines and more. All of them looked expensive and in good condition. There were a few nice-looking cars in various stages of disassembly, but the centerpiece was a whole white convertible hot rod with leather seats and vanity plates proudly reading, "DOTSON."

"Hmmm," Trent studied the scene thoughtfully. "I think this is the wrong end of the building."

"You can say that again," Myron growled from the doorway behind him. The Phillies baseball cap shadowed his eyes as he kicked the door shut and took a pistol out of his pocket. "You just stand over there by the wall."

"Okay," Trent shrugged.

It seemed he had stumbled into a chop shop. That was kind of lame. He'd hoped to at least learn to play in open-D tuning before he died. The timing kind of sucked too, because his mom expected him home and would probably be wondering where he was after a few days. Oh, well. _Rock as much as you can in the time you have,_ Nick had told him once. It was good advice.

"Bad luck, young man," Myron said grimly. "Just plain bad luck."

"You probably should have locked the door," Trent replied.

Myron cocked the gun. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

He aimed. Trent yawned.

Something large and heavy struck Myron's head with a _clang._ He crumpled unconscious to the floor. Jesse shuffled out from the shadows behind him and, detecting no more threats, tossed the enormous fender aside.

"Thanks, man," Trent smiled.

"No problem," Jesse replied. "I found my necklace."


	5. To Frame a Painter

** Chapter 5 : To Frame a Painter **

Ω

Amanda swallowed hard as she and Sheriff Bryson watched the silver-haired girl from across the diner. She had managed to remain her usually calm self as the night wore on, but now she was so nervous her throat had gone dry. Obviously Paris still knew plenty that she hadn't told them, and with every drop of water that fell from her sweatshirt, Amanda's heart pounded at the thought of solving this mystery.

Bryson rose to address Paris. "Miss Elwood. Did you take a little trip outside just now?"

"No," the artist replied, as anxious and defensive as ever. "Why?"

"Couldn't help but notice your hoodie is soakin' wet."

Paris looked back at it with wide eyes, as did everyone else in the room. It was still off and draped innocently over her chair, but the puddle of rainwater on the floor was quite new.

"If I recall, the sheriff instructed everyone to stay here so that the crime scene wouldn't be tampered with," said Amanda. "Which is even more important now, since a vital piece of evidence may have been removed from the bus."

"But … but it wasn't me!"

Alison, who had been quiet for some time now, finally stood up and intervened. "God, Paris, will you get real already? Did you honestly think you could get away with it?"

Paris turned on her with such fury that everyone in the diner seemed to shrink. "You promised! _You promised, Alison!_ You keep your mouth shut!"

Alison stared back at her without blinking. The expression on her face was somewhere between disgust and sheer exhaustion.

"Simmer down, Miss Elwood," Bryson instinctively stepped between them. "Miss Caldwell, supposing you tell us just what this is all about."

"No!" Paris shouted. "Alison, don't you dare!"

Alison shook her head. "Why bother? The cops are going to find out anyway. Hell, the sheriff and Mrs. Lane already know! 'A vital piece of evidence'? What do you think they're talking about? It's the other flask!"

Bryson picked up the damp sweatshirt, reached into the left pocket with his handkerchief, and ever so delicately pulled it out. A gleaming silver hip flask, identical to the one in Daniel's pocket.

Silence fell. Amanda took a deep breath as goosebumps rose on her arms. She hadn't expected to feel so alive. It was a sensation she thought could come only from her artwork, but this pattern in her mind was coming together as naturally as any of her works. It felt like a masterpiece nearing completion. Only the final strokes remained.

"You're right, Alison," she said. Her voice seemed to have a calming effect on everyone except for Paris, who was gripping the sides of her table and staring daggers at the brunette. "Would you like to tell us what you and Paris were both so anxious to keep secret?"

"So you did hear us in the hallway. I should've known," Alison shrugged helplessly. "Well, why not? There's no way I'm going down for this. Murder was never part of the plan. At least not my plan."

"If you think you're going to pin this on me ... " Paris snarled.

"One at a time!" Bryson said. "Miss Caldwell, let's hear it."

Alison looked at Amanda and Bryson. "A few days ago, Paris came to me and said she had a plan. She wanted to get back at Daniel for dumping her. I thought it was just a little harmless fun, so I said sure."

Paris' shoulders trembled with rage as Alison continued to speak.

"She said she was going to put laxatives in his vodka and wanted me to help her. I thought that was going a little too far. I went along at first, but on the day before we left the colony, I came to her and said I didn't want to go through with it anymore. She got mad, and said she was going to get back at him with or without my help. That was the last time we talked. I guess it's pretty obvious that she slipped him a flask of her own later, and laxatives just weren't enough for her."

"How come you didn't mention this to me earlier?" Bryson asked her.

Alison sighed. "I don't know. I guess I didn't want to believe she could really ... do something like that."

Amanda was surprised at how easily the young woman's whole demeanor could change. The innocent face she wore for Bryson, the cold and indifferent stare reserved for Paris ... the sheriff had been right about one thing. She was a good actress. But which side of her was genuine?

"Oh, sure, Alison!" Paris cried sarcastically. "You care _so_ much about me, don't you? And you have _all_ the respect in the world for my work, and we're _such_ good friends. Admit it, you just hung out with me to get to Daniel!"

"He didn't care about you anyway, Paris. That's the difference between us. I'm smart enough to know when I'm being used. And I was using him, too. We both got what we wanted. And I'd say you got what you wanted, too. He's dead, isn't he?"

Paris pounded her fists on the table. "I put laxatives in there, Alison! That's all I did. You're the one who killed him, because you _weren't_ getting what you wanted!"

Alison faltered slightly. "I ... no. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Getting your work into the galleries? That was just a lie. I know because he promised me the same thing. Plus he was pissing you off with his drinking. And let's not forget the _pièce de résistance_ \- or should I say the _coup de grâce ... "_

"Look, am I sitting here with a wet sweatshirt? Did I run out to the bus and swipe the other flask so I wouldn't get caught?"

" ... Daniel was cheating on you too!" Paris finished triumphantly.

Alison was momentarily speechless. Her eyes swept slowly from Paris to the table directly across from her, and the two people sitting there.

Yes, Amanda said to herself; it made perfect sense. Alison and Daniel were a good match because she used people the same way he did. She used Paris to get to Daniel, she used Daniel to get her own sketches into local art galleries, and she used Jane by plying her with alcohol and trying to seduce her. And now, to deflect suspicion from herself, she was throwing Paris under the bus. Both of them were to blame: Alison for her manipulative behavior, Paris for her immaturity.

But something was wrong. One last piece was still missing from the puzzle. Amanda's pale blue eyes fixated on something else that just barely protruded from the pocket of the sweatshirt, the puddle on the floor beneath it, and then Paris' shoes, which did not appear to be wet at all. Then she followed Alison's accusatory gaze to the last female artist in the room.

"Oh, Alison, really!" Jet laughed sharply. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm spoken for."

"Since when? Today? You never even gave Guy a second look before we got on the bus."

An outraged Guy grabbed Jet's hand and sent Paris another threatening look. "That's none of your business! Stop grasping at straws and confess what you did so the rest of us can go home. Just because Daniel enjoyed her work more than yours - "

"Are you sure that's the only thing of hers he enjoyed, Guy?" Paris taunted him. "Then I guess you weren't in that painting workshop a few weeks ago where they were flirting the entire time. You saw it too, Jane! Didn't you?"

Everybody turned once again to the youngest Lane. Not wanting any more to do with this mess, she started to shake her head until a seemingly insignificant memory surfaced in her mind, and she looked up sharply. "Fine. Yes, I did see it. I didn't really think about it. Daniel flirted with everything that had two 'X' chromosomes."

"In the storage closet?" Paris asked with a nasty gleam in her eye. "Loudly?"

Hollis Bryson put his hands on his hips and cleared his throat with impatience. "Miss Elwood, Miss Caldwell ... this is all very fascinating, but I've listened to you tear into each other long enough now, and I have a feeling that if I don't cut you off, you'll try to implicate everybody else in this diner in a scheme that you, and only you, could have known about. You've been withholding important information from the very beginning and quite frankly I wouldn't believe either one of you if your tongues were notarized."

Paris seemed on the verge of hyperventilating. "But sheriff, I didn't do it! I didn't go out to the bus, I didn't take that flask, and I didn't poison Daniel!"

"Well, neither did I," Alison said coldly.

"I don't want to hear it, ladies. I don't know what all happened at this 'colony' of yours; personally I think you and your friends could all use a good long day in church, but that's beside the point. I may not be the law here but I can make a citizen's arrest, and that's just what I intend to do. So get comfortable, 'cause you both are going to be here for a while."

Using the handkerchief, Amanda unfastened the stopper from the second flask and sniffed. This one was just plain vodka. She nodded as though she had just reached a decision, and spoke up once more.

"That's a good idea, sheriff," she said, interrupting further protests from the young women. "It's worth investigating whether Alison might have been complicit in Daniel's insurance fraud and, if Daniel had lived, Paris may very well have been guilty of assault for administering laxatives to him without his consent."

Bryson squinted. "Er ... maybe so, ma'am, but I just happened to be referring to the _murder_ of Mr. Dotson."

"In that case, there is only one suspect here who should be subject to a citizen's arrest," Amanda replied. "And that is the killer."

"You mean ... "

"Exactly. It was neither Alison nor Paris."

"How could you possibly know that?" Percy asked her.

"Because the only one who had the opportunity to get to Daniel's flask - the one in his carry-on bag - was Alison. And I strongly suspect a toxicologist won't find anything but vodka inside of it. The killer had to purchase a different flask, poison it, and wait for an opportunity to slip it into Daniel's pocket after he got on the bus. That opportunity presented itself only once: the moment Mr. Johns boarded."

Johns held up his hands. "Look, Mrs. Lane. I'm not sure what you're talking about, but we've been over this. I told you, I'm just an insurance investigator. I had no reason to try to kill this man."

"Maybe not. But when you bumped into Daniel and spilled some of his things, the killer saw an opening. Several people got up from their seats and rushed over to help him. And while they were down on the floor and Daniel's attention was diverted, that's when one of them slipped the poisoned flask into his left pocket. The killer trusted that he would check it on a reflex and forget the flask was supposed to be in his bag. Sure enough, Daniel found it, poured it into his juice, and drank. Forty minutes later, he was dead."

She paused and looked around the diner. Everyone else, even the sheriff, seemed to lean forward.

"There were seven people on the bus who did not try to help Daniel pick up his things: the driver, myself, my daughter, the sheriff, Mr. Johns, Alison, and Paris. Which, if my theory is correct, leaves us with only three suspects."

Percy shifted nervously in his chair while Guy clenched his fists. "I'm warning you, Mrs. Lane, if you're accusing me ... "

"This suspect must have been very familiar with Daniel, because they knew there was a second flask and they had to account for it. The moment the power went out, they saw another opportunity. They took Paris' sweatshirt, sneaked out through the back entrance to the bus, took the clean flask from Daniel's bag and put it right into the pocket. Then the suspect ran back inside and replaced the sweatshirt on Paris' chair before the lights came on, hoping to frame her for the murder. It was both very clever and very desperate. It almost succeeded, too."

Amanda lifted the sweatshirt and took one small strip of cloth from the pocket: a single dark tassel, with a clear bead dangling from the end.

"But the killer left a piece of evidence behind. Didn't they, Jet?"

The scruffy girl froze in her seat. She stared at the tassel as if transfixed, then slowly looked down at the ends of her sleeves.

"I thought it was odd how Paris' sweatshirt was soaked, and yet her shoes were quite dry. Yours, on the other hand ... "

Jet shuffled her feet nervously on the floor, where a slowly dissipating puddle could still be seen.

"I'm afraid both of those things gave you away."

Jet stiffened all over as if she were about to deny it all, start a fight, or simply make a run for it. Then, as if realizing all three options were useless, she sank down in her chair. Tears crept into the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as Guy watched her in disbelief.

"Desperate?" she said in a tired, tremulous voice. "You bet I was. I was up for a promotion at the magazine. I was going to be the head art critic. Then I just had to come here, and run into _him."_

"Tell us what happened, miss," Bryson opened his notepad again.

"Paris is right. I was involved with Daniel. He ... he said I had a future. I knew he was just bullshitting, but it felt good anyway. So I was with him for a few days, maybe a week. Then I started talking to Guy."

She looked up and put her hand on Guy's shoulder. He just shook his head in disbelief.

"Everyone else thought my work was a joke. That I only wrote about art because I couldn't make it. But not him. He was the first person who really cared, who liked what I was doing. Before I knew it I was falling for him. So the day before we left, I went to break it off with Daniel. When I told him I was in love with Guy, he went crazy. He acted like this greedy, possessive _child._ He threatened to ruin our careers if I didn't stay with him. I panicked. I didn't know what to do. Then I overheard Paris and Alison arguing about some silly plan of theirs, and ... I guess you know the rest."

"But ... hemlock?" Guy said hoarsely.

"It seemed right. My mother's a botanist; I only live a few hours away from here. I just drove back home and took it from her lab. I roomed with Paris and I knew where she was hiding the flask. It was easy," Jet's voice grew quiet, until it was almost a whisper. "I know how much you admired him, Guy. I know. But I had to do it, for us. Both of us."

Ω

The morning was pale, cloudy, and wet. The Salem police had finally been reached around three A.M., and were silently taking Jet to one of the cars.

"It's weird," Jane said to Amanda as they watched from the front of the diner. "I kind of feel sorry for her."

"So do I."

"But I'm not going to miss Daniel Dotson, either."

"I don't think many people will."

Jane looked at her. "So, did you get it out of your system? You were a _de facto_ sheriff's deputy, a forensic pathologist, a toxicologist, and a detective. You solved a mystery, caught a killer, and kept us up talking to the cops all night. Satisfied?"

"It was different from anything I've ever done, Janie," Amanda smiled dreamily. "It was like traveling to a new place, drawing in all my inspiration, and creating a sculpture all in one night. I hope I never have to do it again. But I don't regret it."

"So what happens when we get home?"

"Hmm," Amanda thought about it for a moment. "I think we're going to be asleep for a while."

"Twenty-four hours, give or take a week."

"And maybe after that, I'll go grocery shopping."

Jane nodded. "Good idea. If those leftovers stay in the fridge any longer, we'll have to start charging them rent."

Another cop car pulled up to Mom and Mel's. The officer in the driver's seat waved to them. "Hey. Are these guys yours?"

Trent and Jesse waved from the backseat.

"Hey, Mom. Janie. Did we miss anything?"

"They called us from a chop shop over by Ashfield, along with a car that allegedly belonged to the victim," the officer continued. "Does crime-fighting run in your family or something?"

"The only thing that runs in this family is me," Jane said dryly. "But thanks for the compliment."

"Well, we're talking to that insurance investigator right now. If everything checks out with the Pennsylvania fraud bureau, these boys may be in line for a reward."

Trent grinned. "Wow. That would be great. Maybe we can replace The Tank."

"What happened to it?" said Amanda.

"It's a long story. Let's just say we're all going to need a ride home."

Jane frowned and turned back towards the building. "That bus is going to be a crime scene for a while longer. I think I'd better call Daria."

"Not to worry, folks," a worn-out Sheriff Bryson was shuffling over to them. "The company is sending another bus out to take us the rest of the way. And it looks like the Salem boys are finally done questioning us for now, so we'll be free to go."

"Finally, some good news. In the meantime, I think I'm going to need more coffee. See you later," Jane nodded and walked back into the diner. Trent and Jesse followed her, no doubt smelling food in the vicinity.

"You should be very proud of your daughter, Mrs. Lane. She's got a good head on her shoulders, and I can see where it came from."

"Thank you, sheriff," Amanda said graciously. "I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but I'm glad I was able to help."

"So am I. Thanks a bundle, ma'am. For everything," Bryson offered his hand, and they shook once more. "If you're ever in my neck of the woods, feel free to visit. My wife was just about sick wondering what had happened to me, but I told her everything and she says she would love to meet you."

"If I manage to find my husband, maybe we'll give you a call."

"That's just fine. I may have missed my own retirement party, but what a way to go out." Bryson tipped his hat and moved on.

Amanda watched Jet's police car as it left the parking lot. She didn't know if the young woman had repeated her confession to the local authorities, or whether she would be called upon to testify at the trial, but at least for now her task was complete. What possessed a man to weave such corrupt and complicated webs around himself as Daniel had? Was this the vision he had for himself when he first began to create? Perhaps he lived with no vision at all, and walked into temptation just as blindly as he had stumbled upon success.

A healthy and stable life, lived to the fullest, was often its own inspiration. But some artists never learned that lesson, and Amanda herself had discovered it so recently that she felt unworthy to judge him. One thing was clear: the artists of tomorrow needed a better example than he had provided for his students.

She wondered if Sedona was hiring for the fall. It would be nice to have more stable income, and there were a lot of things to catch up on at home.


End file.
